A Prehistorical Evolutionary View of Diplomacy

Abstract

Extant discussions of diplomacy understood as a social institution either take the form of histories or genealogies. This chapter attempts to complement these discussions by understanding the emergence of diplomacy in terms of evolutions. Specifically, I draw on Eldredge and Gould’s idea of punctuated equilibria or tipping points, understood as the culmination of long-term trends. Taking note of the importance of big game hunting as a precondition for human cooperation generally, I go on to identify five more tipping-points. These are classificatory kinship as a template for regular cooperation; regular and ritualized contacts between culturally similar small-scale polities; regular and ritualized contacts between culturally different large-scale polities; permanent bilateral diplomacy and permanent multilateral diplomacy. In conclusion, I discuss what seems to be a trend on its way to become a new tipping-point, namely that states increasingly hybridise their diplomacy by working with and through non-state actors.